A SOUTHPORT woman who was subjected to an eight-year campaign of harassment said she now “feels safe” after a court imposed a restraining order on her tormentor.

In an exclusive interview at her home after Paul Stevens was sentenced on Monday, Ellen Lesley Carr said she felt the decade-long order banning all contact with her was “a better sentence than prison”.

She said: “Prison would have wound him up even more for when he got out. At least now he should forget about me after 10 years.”

Stevens, 48, was sentenced at North Sefton Magistrates' Court after pleading guilty to repeatedly sending malicious correspondence to Mrs Carr between May 25 and September 25 last year – an offence under the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act.

But the court heard how Stevens had first sent abusive mail to his victim in 1998, after she ignored his written request for a date following a short conversation at a singles' night at the former Champers Bar on Coronation Walk.

Mrs Carr, a 56-year-old housekeeper, said Stevens told her he was an aircraft pilot and owned a Lotus sports car, before propositioning her.

Mrs Carr said that when Stevens first wrote to her, she felt it best not to reply, as she thought he would get the message to leave her alone and she “would not have wanted to hurt him” by telling him directly.

Instead she received an abusive postcard, which she reported to police and for which he was cautioned. Over the following years her home was bombarded with junk mail from Stevens, who refused to end his campaign of torment.

Police linked him to the mail through his handwriting.

Before sentencing, Stevens’s solicitor, Melanie Tomlinson, described him as “truly remorseful for his actions”.

Miss Tomlinson continued that this remorse followed discussions between Stevens and his partner of three years, after his partner found out about the charges in the past week. The court also heard that Stevens was an alcoholic at the time of the offence and was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder after being admitted to Liverpool’s Broadgreen Hospital in 2003.

Stevens, of Simonscroft, Bootle, was also sentenced to a two year supervision order, four months’ night-time curfew and was ordered to pay £75 court costs and £200 compensation to Mrs Carr.

l FOR a full, exclusive interview, see this Friday’s ‘Southport Visiter’.